Flaschenpost
ACAB. That includes Sting.
For someone who was extremely pro-remain when Brexit rolled round, there was once a time I would have done anything to be out of Europe. I'm writing to you about that trip today, friend.
As a teenager enrolled in an all girls Catholic secondary school, I wasn't holding my breath when it came to winning any 'coolest kid in puberty' trophies. To rub salt in that already gapingly virginal wound, I took it upon myself to join the school choir. Fucking about as a soprano on Friday nights soon paid off though - the choir was going on a trip in the middle of Year 8! I was beyond excited; a road trip all the way to central Germany without parents, it was going to be mental. I felt so grown up, I was now a woman. Ein Frau. I was a mature female who was ready for a world of freedom and travel that only the Thungrian region of Deutschland could offer me. I remember packing my most grown-up ballet flats from Tammy Girl and my best Led Zeppelin t-shirt to let both my choral peers and every German teenage boy I was to inevitably avoid eye contact with that I was serious about music and fashion alike. Ich war nicht wie die anderen Mädchen.
Our final destination was Eisenach: a town right in the middle of Germany where noted funky herr Sebastian Bach grew up. As a choir, It was our job to sing in the very church he used to hang around in. It was the Diocese of Liverpool's job to make that journey as cheap as possible. We all know what that means, friend - cheap meant it was going be a bastard of pilgrimage to get to that unassuming town, filled with upsets and bumpy roads. How very Catholic.
The first leg of the trip was class, and still very much brings a smile to my face - nothing felt more fun that sleeping over on a P&O ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. There was a disco, a buffet, and an adventure ahead. To this day, I still consider that nautical sojourn as my first cruise, and I haven't got a bad word to say about it. My misfortune arrived just as I arrived to the mainland.
Looking now on Google Maps, I can't help but break out in laughter - because the next day felt like the Odyssey. I’ve had much worse trips than this in my old age, but now I think reading is cool and the internet is easily accessible to me.
For my younger friends, back in my day we didn't have the luxury of having phones like the one you're reading this on today. There was no TikTok time to be had on that journey, never mind the ability to check Google Maps to get a sense of your location. Just looking out of a window, wondering when your first period would come, if you'll ever kiss the boy you fancy, and listening to what the grown-ups wanted to listen to. My jaw just clenched typing that, my friend. All the driver would play was the first side of the acclaimed 1986 compilation tape: Every Breath You Take: The Singles by The Police.
For the entire trip.
That's it.
That's 24 minutes and 47 seconds of Sting on a loop. On a German motor way. And let me tell you now meine freunde, he fucking blasted it.
By the second time I heard Roxanne, my mind started to wander, and I thought about what everyone back at school was doing in jealousy.. When the fourth arrival of Walking on the Moon rolled around, I remember lying to the teachers about needing a wee so I could have some respite in a service station away from the tape of doom. Everytime Sting said “school girl fantasy” in Don’t stand so close to me, I’d glance over at our music teacher and tuck my greasy unkempt hair behind my ear. He was the only boy on the coach other than the driver who I now fancied due to either my first ovulation cycle kicking in some form of coach based Stockholm syndrome. Puberty and being away from your family for the first time are both hard enough. I didn’t need Sting and his knobhead mates adding insult to injury.
Is this what people meant when they said 'Fuck the Police'? Because the more I passed unimpressive stretches of generic autobahn and the more I heard Sting go on about love, loss and life - I started to wholeheartedly agree. If this was what being an independent grown up on holiday was all about, I wanted to be no part of it. Every time Message in a Bottle came back on, I knew we were halfway through the tape. I remember pressing my face on the cold window of the coach, myself too sending out an S.O.S to the World. No one got my metaphorical message in a bottle that day - rather the opposite occurred. Me and the coach had something in common that day, we both broke down just outside of Dortmund. That fucking tape player kept working though didn't it?! Course it fucking did. COURSE IT FUCKING DID. Considering I was doing my best to be a good Catholic kid on that trip, God didn't half pull a blinder on me. Maybe this was my penance for eyeing up Mr Quinn on die Autobahn?
I wish I had something else to tell you about my first trip away without family supervision, but all those memories have been wiped clean by the tape. I can only remember those same 6 songs on that cursed cassette, and I couldn't even tell you what we sang when we finally got to Eisenach if you paid me.
23 years have passed since that perilous journey and I've yet to visit Germany again. Alas, there have been two major developments since then, I've now got a smartphone with Spotify and I have now kissed a boy. I suppose I really am a real grown up now? I don't know why that coach driver only chose to play side A of that tape, but I do know one thing: I will visit Germany again in the near future. I will use Ubers. I will put my headphones in. I will no longer worry about coming on my period in a pair of bootleg Levis. I look forward to the trip, as I know this time round it wont Sting.
With major love and the sincerest of sincerity, Scheiß auf die Polizei.
Your friend, Global Scouser x